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S.C. Sheriff's Dept. Just Said Townville Shooting Isn't Terrorism Because Everyone Is White

By Rika Christensen - September 28, 2016

A teen opened fire at an elementary school in Townville, S.C., wounding a teacher and two students after allegedly killing his father. The shooter is in custody, and the sheriff's department gave a brief press conference as per usual for shootings like this. However, when discussing whether this could be called terrorism, Captain Garland Major gave a frankly disgusting reason for why this couldn't be terrorism:

"The students were both white males. The teacher was a white female. The shooter is a white male. There is no racial undertone, no terrorism involved."

Oh really. It's only terrorism when it's, who, Muslims? Brown people in general? Them, in other words? Whether a violent act is terrorism depends partly on the reason it was carried out, not who carried it out. This shooter was 14 years old with no known relationship to his victims. Was it terrorism? We don't know, but it's racist as all hell to say "they were white, so it's not terrorism."

The fact is that domestic terrorists in the U.S. tend to be white men. They also tend to be right-wing extremists and they're a bigger threat than ISIS, according to law enforcement. For a white sheriff's deputy to claim this can't be terrorism because everyone involved is white is abhorrent in the extreme.

I think the teachers and students in that school would beg to differ. Clearly they were terrified, as anyone would have been. It doesn't have to be a black or brown person shooting the gun for terror to be involved.

Anglo Nations owned ICC excludes them and their war crimes from Justice

Impunity of world powers exposed as South Africa withdraws from ICC

South Africa’s recent announcement that it will withdraw from the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute has cast light on the discriminatory nature of the ICC, and the imbalance of power governing it. A number of African countries have followed or plan to follow suit.

Arguments have arisen around the ICC’s willingness to convict African leaders, over its willingness to hold the dominant global powers accountable for human rights abuses. Certainly, the court has indicted 39 people and all of them are African. Apart from convicting Bosnian Serb leaders, has not held one non-African official accountable. However this does not change the fact that the exit of countries from the ICC will encourage a global climate of impunity.

Now, the lead prosecutor of the ICC Fatou Bensoudareleased a statementsupposedly in reaction to a wave of African countries leaving the ICC – claiming that her office has “reasonable basis to believe” that US forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004.

However, it is important to examine the composition and laws governing the ICC, to understand that these statements hold little promise of ever having any effect, especially when it comes to holding the major powers accountable.

In an article written for the Daily Maverick in South Africa, Dr Oscar van Heerden, argues in favour of South Africa’s exit, and makes some key points that are worth highlighting here:

The ICC operates in an environment where global institutions like the UN Security Council and Bretton Woods institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are configured in a way to ensure the dominance of the US and its European allies.

The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, nor is China, Russia, Israel, India or Pakistan among others – although there are 103 countries that are signatories.

Crucially, there is a caveat in the Rome Statute that indicates that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council can tell the ICC who to charge. These include the US, Russia and China, who are themselves not even signatories to the Rome Statute.

The ICC has not condemned a number of Western-led military ventures which have had dire consequences for civilian populations. These include the US invasion of Libya and the US-UK invasion Iraq based on torture “evidence” and many other instances of aggression including French aggression in Africa and Russia’s in the Ukraine.

The long-term effects of post World War II history has resulted in an imbalance of power in the world that favours the UN veto powers, and the ICC acts out and even facilitates this power imbalance.

Towards a world of impunity

African countries have reacted to this in nothing less than a mass walk-out. Just a week before South Africa’s announcement, Burundi gave notice that it would also withdraw from the ICC. Namibia has also announced its intention to withdraw, as has Gambia. Kenya is expected to follow suit soon.

These walk-outs are not based on principle alone, but in fact are a reaction to the investigation or pending investigation of some of these governments for human rights abuses – Burundi for extrajudicial killings and Kenya, for the alleged role of President Kenyatta in horrific post election violence in 2007-8, to name two. This, more than anything, is an example of how a culture of impunity can quickly spread.

The ICC was founded in the wake of the Nuremburg Trials, to hold accountable state officials who committed war crimes and human rights violations, including, most centrally, the act of international aggression which Nuremburg judges called the “the supreme international crime”, since it gives rise to all other war crimes.

It is the reality that UN veto powers including the United States and Russia, by the sheer numbers of civilians affected by their military adventures, are the chief international aggressors in the world today. Their actions, primarily against ordinary Muslims, are facilitated by the propaganda and Islamophobia conjured by the global War on Terror. And yet they remain unaccountable under the ICC, which does not acknowledge War on Terror duplicity.

The case of Ahmed Al Faqi recently illustrates this duplicity. The definition of “war crimes” was extended in his case, to secure a conviction of nine years for destroying shrines in Mali, whereas it has taken the ICC 15 years to acknowledgethe “possible war crimes” of the United States in Afghanistan under George W. Bush.

The global ‘War on Terror’ with its legalised kidnappings (blithely called ‘renditions’), torture and extrajudicial killings done in the name of countering “terrorism” has netted hundreds and continues to affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

The United States has also made concerted efforts to protect any of their citizens – read military officials or servicemen – from being held accountable by the ICC by cajoling countries into signing Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIA), which promise never to bring a US citizen stationed in their country, before the ICC.

Such flouting of international legal norms and treaties sets a low moral standard for all. Until crimes perpetrated in the name of the War on Terror are examined and the perpetrators held accountable, this ever lower moral standard will continue to toxify the planet.

Once the first countries to sign up to the ICC, African countries are now the most disillusioned with its bias. If this does not cause a re-evaluation of the ICC and its effectiveness, their walk-outs could set the stage for yet greater global impunity, furthered – in Africa itself – by the ‘War on Terror’ and its injustices.

Unless international justice upheld, state impunity will continue to increase, perpetrators will have freer reign, and it will be up to ordinary citizens and civil society to stand up for justice in the face of tyranny.

No surprised they are walking off. The western imperialists don't sign any treaties to be bound by while expecting others to be signatories, make their own treatises to protect their own from being persecuted and while not being any part of ICC have powers to decide who gets persecuted by them and who doesn't. In short, this is nothing more than Anglo nations using their white privilege towards their people and punishing non-whites while they go on massacring millions in their war of terror.

Seriously, this country is beyond a mess! Annie Dookhan is walking free, after giving a guilty charge to faking results, giving false testimony and switching drug samples over 9 years working in a state lab. She is thought to have tampered with over 40,000 cases, many black people's samples, on purpose, and possibly sent up to 20,000 black people to prison.

Her crime has been one of hate, on par with a serial killer, in my humble opinion. Even if every person wrongfully jailed is released she has still killed the lives of many.

And now, Dookhan walks free, thanks to the amazing justice system that's only given her a 3-5 year slap on the wrist sentence for her heinous crime.

It seems she may not really server any time at all.

The Boston Glove reported:Darren Duarte, a department spokesman, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday that Dookhan had been paroled and is no longer in custody at MCI-Framingham, where she had been serving her sentence.

The Parole Board, in a decision dated Feb. 24, found she was a low-risk, nonviolent offender, with no previous record.

"Completed multiple programs and incurred no disciplinary reports," the board noted in its decision. "Release not incompatible with best interest of society."

How big a deal was the Dookhan case? These numbers help tell the story.

One member of the board noted that more than 40 letters of support had been submitted on Dookhan's behalf and that she was "very remorseful."

I guess this sends a very clear message. Dookan is protected and the lives she destroyed are still worthless.

This is the western justice system where the authority can fake lab tests and send innocent people to jail and when captured then they set their own criminal free, especially if they are white. This is no different than 3rd world corruption. This is why Islamic punishments are only applicable with witnesses and not some lab fabricated reports.

Anglo student who owned toddler-rape videos allowed to use false name to protect wealthy family

3.2.2016

Eton college pupil, Andrew Picard, who owned 1,185 indecent images of children, as well as videos of a three-year-old being raped and children being forced to have sex with dogs, was allowed to use his Mother’s maiden name by the UK courts in order to protect his wealthy family’s reputation.Picard, whose real name is Andrew Boeckman, was spared jail and handed an 18-month suspended sentence for ten counts of possessing child pornography.However, evidence has emerged that the UK courts allowed Mr Boeckman to use his mother’s maiden name in order to protect his wealthy family’s reputation.Picard’s father, Phillip J Boeckman, is an extremely wealthy lawyer, whose clients have included Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan.

During the trial of Picard, the judge commented that “Your family didn’t deserve that (suffering) but it is a consequence of this sort of offending. Inevitably your privileged background and where you were going to school added a degree of frissance to the reporting.”All references to the name Boeckman have been deleted from the internet, but a cached article from The Daily Mirror, which has also now mysteriously been deleted, mentions the Boeckman name.Picard may have chosen to use his mother’s maiden name before his arrest, but we have obtained evidence from a US local newspaper that shows that he used the Boeckman name as recently as August 2015.

Judge tells student who shouted racist slurs during rampage ‘I’m not sending a lady to prison for this’

A student who went on a drunk rampage, shouting racist abuse and attacking staff, has been spared jail.

A judge told Karolina Szumko, who continued to be racist even after her arrest, ‘I’m not sending a lady to prison for something like this.’

She had drunk half a bottle of vodka before trying to get into the Notting Hill Arts Club. However the 18-year-old was too drunk so they refused to let her in.

The Polish national who has lived in the UK for five years told a bouncer ‘You fucking black, you shouldn’t be standing between us.’

She slapped the manager of the club on the neck and one of the officers that arrested her as well as kicking another officer.

Prosecutor Cerry McNulty said that she wrapped her leg round an officer’s leg and refused to let go. When she had leg restraints put on she continued to thrash around.

Szumko, a first year photography student, shouted at police saying ‘British p***s’ adding: ‘You are going to fucking die, fucking racists, pretend to be white but wish Merry Christmas to Muslim People.’

At the police station she threw water over a custody officer and continued her racist tirade.

Hammersmith Magistrates’ Court heard that she was ‘mortified’ by what she had done and could barely remember the incident which happened in December last year.

Deptuy District Judge Adrian Turner told her: ‘I hope you are horrified. It horrifies me. Racially abusing and attacking police officers and security people all in a public place, and that’s the result of drinking far more vodka than was good for you.

‘I dare say you were not aware of what was going on, and I accept what happened wouldn’t have happened apart from drinking, you are genuinely sorry.

‘I’m not going to send a lady to prison for something like this.’

Instead she was ordered to pay £200 to her victims and told to do 150 hours of community service.

She admitted three counts of assaulting a police officer, three of racially aggravated public order offences, one count of assaulting an accredited person, and one count of common assault.

On paper, Sebastian Gregerson and Khalil Rayyan sound a lot alike, if their alleged crimes are any indication.

Both are accused of supporting terrorist groups. Both allegedly had an affinity for guns and talked a lot about jihad. Both were stung by the FBI.

But one is a white Muslim convert, the other an Arab Muslim with immigrant parents — a difference that one attorney fears could lead to an injustice as the white suspect appears poised to get a much better sentencing deal.

The government wants to lock up Rayyan for eight years; Gregerson could get less than half that.

Rayyan will learn his fate today at a 2:30 p.m. sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh. Gregerson will be sentenced June 30.

Under a plea deal, Gregerson, a married father of twins, avid hunter and gun enthusiast who converted to Islam after high school, faces three to five years in prison for possessing explosives. Rayyan, a single, 22-year-old pizzeria worker whose parents are Palestinian immigrants from Jordan, faces eight years for gun charges tied to marijuana use: He was trying to buy and use a gun while using pot at the same time.

Rayyan's sentencing guidelines call for a prison sentence of 15-21 months, but the government says that's not enough and it's pushing for eight years instead, saying he's too dangerous to roam free so soon.

"Is Khalil being punished for being an Arab Muslim from Dearborn, as opposed to a Caucasian?" Shanker asked in court, saying "it makes no sense" that Gregerson is facing less time when "his case is far more scary."

"He had grenades. He had a machete. He had multiple AKs, 16 guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, a book on sniper fire and ... he threatened to kill people," Shanker wrote of Gregerson.

Shanker has asked for a 15-month sentence for Rayyan, claiming he was manipulated by two FBI undercover employees posing as love interests who pushed him to make radical statements.

The federal government paints a different picture.

Prosecutors argue that Rayyan deserves a lengthy sentence because — they say — he's a danger to the community, and, it's necessary to deter others who may be contemplating terrorism or mass shootings. Prosecutors have alleged that Rayyan contemplated mass murder and talked about being a jihadist, killing women and children at a church, and killing a police officer in a hospital.

"He pinpointed the location for each attack," prosecutors argued in court documents. "And he specified his weapon of choice: an AK47 with a 40-round magazine."

"It's clear the defendant is dangerous," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet said in court last month, responding to questions about why Rayyan is facing a stiffer sentence than Gregerson.

Rayyan, who pleaded guilty to two gun charges, was never charged with terrorism-related crimes. The government says that the FBI blocked Rayyan from implementing his ideas because it arrested him first.

Rayyan came onto the FBI's radar in 2015 after he allegedly bragged about plans to “shoot up” a Detroit church. The FBI had tracked him through social media, phone conversations and surveillance, following his two Twitter accounts, on which he expressed support for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Shanker argues his client is not the man the government is painting him to be.

"Rayyan is not a terrorist," Shanker has argued in court. "He never intended to hurt anyone."

"When push came to shove in their conversations, not only did Rayyan refuse to agree to any act of violence, he pleaded with (one woman) not to hurt herself or others," Shanker argued in court records.

Shanker argues that his client "fully and completely understands why the FBI targeted him," but that he now denounces ISIS and understands the "bastardization" of the Muslim religion by radicals. Moreover, he argues, his statements were protected under the First Amendment.

Gregerson's lawyer has made similar arguments, maintaining the government overstated its case and that his client's statements on Facebook about the conflict in the Muslim world and terrorist attacks were protected speech.

Gregerson, 30, of Detroit was arrested in July after allegedly buying grenades from an undercover FBI agent at a Monroe gas station. He pleaded guilty to unregistered possession of destructive devices. He was never charged with a terrorism crime, but prosecutors accused him of plotting jihad on behalf of the Islamic State in court documents — information it disclosed in an effort to keep him jailed. The government seized an arsenal of weapons from his home, including a loaded AK47, a machete, a grenade launcher and hundreds of rounds of AK47 ammunition.

According to courtroom testimony, Gregerson converted to Islam more than a decade ago after graduating from high school in Ann Arbor. He has worked at Target and Walmart and taken courses at Henry Ford Community College. He remains jailed pending his June 30 sentencing. He faces a maximum of five years in prison.

Gregerson has been spared the fate of other Americans who were charged with and convicted of trying to support terrorist groups or join their mission.

For example, in February, a Wisconsin man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for trying to join the Islamic State. Joshua Van Haften, 36, was arrested two years ago on his way to Syria to join ISIS. According to the Department of Justice, he swore allegiance to ISIS in an online post, stating: “The only thing that matters to me is joining my brothers for the war against America liars.”

In 2015, a federal judge sentenced a 19-year-old Colorado woman to four years in prison after she admitted to wanting to join ISIS and participate in jihad in the Middle East. Shannon Conley, a Muslim convert who wanted to marry a Tunisian ISIS fighter and become a nurse in an ISIS camp, had asked for leniency. But prosecutors argued for a tough sentence to deter others from joining terrorist groups and turning to extremism.

That same year, a federal judge sentenced Leon Davis, of Augusta, Ga., to 15 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to a a terrorist organization, specifically ISIS. According to the Justice Department, for more than a year, an FBI-led team investigated Davis’ attempts to join an overseas terrorist group. He was arrested at an airport in Atlanta on a parole violation.

White supremacist James Harris Jackson showed he truly is the poster-boy for evil Monday as he smirked his way through a Manhattan court appearance in the racially-motivated stabbing death of a black man.

But the avowed racist, 28, who told cops he traveled to the Big Apple from Baltimore intent on killing black people, soon learned that his family had turned its back on him.

Defense lawyer Sanford Talkin told the court that he could no longer represent Jackson over the March 20 murder of Tim Caughman, who was killed with a 26-inch sword, because there was no one to pay him.

“The family doesn’t have the funds?” asked Justice Charles Solomon in Manhattan Supreme Court. “Whether they have the funds or not I’m not sure, but I can say his parents are not going to pay,” the lawyer said.

The judge asked Jackson whether he could hire a new lawyer. “That’s not possible,” he said.

Solomon told him he’d assign a new attorney this Wednesday when he’ll be arraigned on charges of first-degree murder as an act of terrorism and other counts.

The Army veteran spotted Caughman, a well-liked can-and-bottle recycler, stooped over a garbage can on Ninth Avenue near W. 36th St. and lunged at him, stabbing him repeatedly, assistant district attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon had previously said.

The mortally wounded Caughman, 66, stumbled into the Midtown South Police Precinct shortly before he died.

Two days later, Jackson turned himself in, telling cops, “You need to arrest me,” according to a criminal complaint.

Caughman had ditched his sword but had two other knives on him when he was apprehended.

The hate-spewing Jackson told investigators he was particularly offended by black men who date white women.

Mayor de Blasio spoke at Caughman’s funeral last Saturday at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens.

“He was attacked for who he was, plain and simple,” Hizzoner said.

“It was an attack on New York City.”

Caughman, the son of a minister, was described by family and friends as an upbeat person with an “enormous heart.”

The lifelong New Yorker was also an autograph collector. His Twitter feed featured photos of him posing with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, pop singer Beyonce and music mogul Russell Simmons.

One in three terror suspects in UK now white amid rise in far-right extremism

It presents 'growing challenge', says a senior security researcher

by Harriet Agerholm - 2/10/2017

A record number of white people were arrested last year on suspicion of terrorism, amid a rise in far-right extremism.

Official statistics show that 91 out of a total 260 people held on suspicion of terrorism offenses were white - a rise of 20 from 2015 and the highest number since 2003.
White suspects made up 35 per cent – or one in three – of all terror related arrests in 2016, compared with 25 per cent in 2015.

The rise contrasts with a fall in arrests across all other ethnic groups. Although they still made up the largest ethnic group for arrests, the largest drop was among Asian people, which fell 24 to 125 arrests in 2016.

Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) security think tank, said: “It's clear that there is a growing challenge from far-right extremist individuals and groups.

“At the last count, one in ten Prevent referrals and one in four Channel referrals were linked to the far-right.”

Authorities have warned there were signs that the threat from the far-right could be growing after the conviction of Thomas Mair for the murder of Labor MP Jo Cox.

The Government's Prevent and Channel programs are handling a rising number of referrals linked to far-right extremism.

Counter-terrorism police have said that while the threat is not of the same gravity as that posed by Islamic State ISIS or al Qaeda, there are extreme right-wing groups attempting to spark violence

In contrast, arrests for "domestic" terrorism more than doubled from 15 to 35, accounting for around one in eight arrests. Domestic terrorism refers to activity where there are no links to either Northern Ireland-related or international terrorism.

Earlier this week it was revealed that UK security services had foiled 13 potential attacks in less than four years, while counter-terror units were running more than 500 investigations at any time.

The official threat level for international terrorism has been at severe, meaning an attack is "highly likely", for more than two years. Security minister Ben Wallace said: "We are determined to detect, disrupt and where possible prosecute all those who pose a threat to the UK. The figures released today once again highlight the hard work carried out by the police, Security Service and Crown Prosecution Service day in and day out to keep the people of this country safe."http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7623931.html

A 'white privilege checklist' was posted in a Minneapolis college dorm

Urges white students to consider certain privileges they may have

'Appalled' students blasted the list as attacking individuals on a double standard

'I still consider myself a social progressive,' student tells DailyMail.com, 'but this is not the way to achieve any amount of progress'

A white University of Minnesota student is speaking out about a 'white privilege checklist' posted in his dorm.

The student, Evan Christenson, says he is a social progressive but was appalled after spotting the checklist in recent weeks, which he feels discourages dialogue by singling out people of one race.

'I still consider myself a social progressive, and I believe more work needs to be done but this is not the way to achieve any amount of progress,' Christenson told DailyMail.com.

'Targeting an individual race, or even an individual person like the poster does is contradictory to the whole goal of bringing people together and understanding cultural differences,' the entrepreneurship student said.

The items on the list come from a longer list of 46 privileges developed in the 1980s by Peggy McIntosh, author of White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack.

'I asked myself, On a daily basis, what do I have that I didn’t earn? It was like a prayer,' McIntosh, now 82, has said in an interview explaining the origin of the list. 'The first one I thought of was: I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.'

Christenson, though, said he did not believe in white privilege.

'I am not inherently racist because I don't believe in white privilege,' he said.

'I do believe it crosses the line. When it attacks the individual and not the idea, there is a problem,' Christenson told Campus Reform.

'I believe there needs to be dialogue on the subject but it needs to more of a give and take and not a one-sided affair.'

'WHITE PRIVILEGE CHECKLIST'

This is the list posted in the University of Minnesota's Yudof Hall:

1. I can arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
3. I can turn on the television or open up the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
4. When I am told about our national heritage or about 'civilization', I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
5. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
6. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the food I grew up with, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.
7. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial responsibility.
8. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
9. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
10. I can take a job or enroll in a college with an affirmative action policy without having my co-workers or peers assume I got in because of my race.
11. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

As the nation weeps for the victims of the horrific bombing in Boston, one searches for lessons amid the carnage, and finds few. That violence is unacceptable stands out as one, sure. That hatred — for humanity, for life, or whatever else might have animated the bomber or bombers — is never the source of constructive human action seems like a reasonably close second.

But I dare say there is more; a much less obvious and far more uncomfortable lesson, which many are loathe to learn, but which an event such as this makes readily apparent, and which we must acknowledge, no matter how painful.

It is a lesson about race, about whiteness, and specifically, about white privilege.

I know you don’t want to hear it. But I don’t much care. So here goes.

White privilege is knowing that even if the Boston Marathon bomber turns out to be white, his or her identity will not result in white folks generally being singled out for suspicion by law enforcement, or the TSA, or the FBI.

White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for whites to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening, or threatened with deportation.

White privilege is knowing that if the bomber turns out to be white, he or she will be viewed as an exception to an otherwise non-white rule, an aberration, an anomaly, and that he or she will be able to join the ranks of pantheon of white people who engage in (or have plotted) politically motivated violence meant to terrorize — and specifically to kill — but whose actions result in the assumption of absolutely nothing about white people generally, or white Christians in particular.

And white privilege is being able to know nothing about the crimes committed by most of the terrorists listed above — indeed, never to have so much as heard most of their names — let alone to make assumptions about the role that their racial or ethnic identity may have played in their crimes.

White privilege is knowing that if the Boston bomber turns out to be white, we will not be asked to denounce him or her, so as to prove our own loyalties to the common national good. It is knowing that the next time a cop sees one of us standing on the sidewalk cheering on runners in a marathon, that cop will say exactly nothing to us as a result.

White privilege is knowing that if you are a white student from Nebraska — as opposed to, say, a student from Saudi Arabia — that no one, and I mean no one would think it important to detain and question you in the wake of a bombing such as the one at the Boston Marathon.

And white privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Belfast. And if he’s an Italian American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.

In short, white privilege is the thing that allows you (if you’re white) — and me — to view tragic events like this as merely horrific, and from the perspective of pure and innocent victims, rather than having to wonder, and to look over one’s shoulder, and to ask even if only in hushed tones, whether those we pass on the street might think that somehow we were involved.

It is the source of our unearned innocence and the cause of others’ unjustified oppression.

Wikipedia: White privilege (or white skin privilege) is a conceptual framework, derived from critical race theory, that is commonly used to help explain certain inequalities associated with race or ethnicity. The term connotes both obvious and less obvious unspoken advantages that white individuals may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice. These include cultural affirmations of one's own worth; greater presumed social status; and freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely. The concept of white privilege also implies the right to assume the universality of one's own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal. It can be compared and/or combined with the concept of male privilege.

Posted on May 16, 2017
Earlier this month, Colgate University in New York was shut down for several hours after a shooter was reported on campus.

It was later discovered that someone had alerted campus officials when they saw a black student carrying a glue gun. An official review of the incident, published last week, said the university had made "mistakes, some significant" in its handling of the situation.

Hours after the incident, Jenny Lundt, a sophomore, attended a general meeting about the lockdown.

She told BuzzFeed News that the meeting, and the apparent ignoring of people of color there, angered her.

"The words from the administration at that meeting: 'It was probably racially motivated,'" she said. "How, after that entire hour in the chapel with members of our community talking about how they were affected, are you going to turn around and dismiss all of their experiences with a 'probably'?"

Angry at what she felt was a lack of action from the university administration and from the white population of the school, she remembered that she has a sword in her room, and that it had always been considered a "joke." She then posted this to Facebook.

THIS is what white privilege looks like. This is me, only one year ago on this very campus, running around the academic quad with a fucking sharp metal sword. People thought it was funny. People laughed- oh look at that harmless, ~ silly white girl ~ with a giant sword!!

Today, a black man carrying a fucking glue gun shut down my ~prestigious liberal arts college~ for 4 hours. The limited information that was released put all black men on this campus in danger and at risk of being killed. That is the reality of the institutionalized racism in the United States. If you think for even a second this wasn't profiling, ask yourself why this sword is still in my room and has not ONCE made anyone uncomfortable. No one has EVER called the police on me. Understand that there are larger forces at play than this one night, and this once instance of racism. See More

In the post, Lundt calls out her own white privilege, pointing out her ability to keep and carry the sword with no issues and comparing it with the fact campus shut down because a black man had a glue gun.

The post quickly went viral and has been shared over 16,000 times. Lundt received a mixed response — some people praised her for highlighting her own privilege and sharing her thoughts.

Lundt shared a response to her post, thanking the author, Sahil Gadhavi, for "challenging me to think more critically about my role in this conversation and the amount of space that me and my whiteness are taking up."I received this open letter from someone who read my posts, Sahil Gadhavi. Please, please, please read his words. If you can read mine, you can read his.

"Where is this response when you see black men being incarcerated everyday while white men walk free for the same crimes or more? Where is this overpouring of attention when black children are being shot by the police everyday, while your own white children are being raised in the ignorance afforded by their skin? Where is ...See More

She said she acknowledges that her post has taken up space in a conversation, and encourages anyone who feels this way to read Gadhavi's letter.
"If every white person reading my posts commits to doing better in their own lives, we can create a paradigm shift that can ripple through all of our communities and the world," she said. "We need to do better to uplift the POC in this country and that is on us."

Brandon Russell is capable of making a bomb - and he admitted doing so.

Officials believe he also participated in neo-Nazi chat rooms where he threatened to kill people and blow up places.

Investigators found guns, ammunition and white supremacist propaganda in his bedroom, court records say. A framed photograph of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was on his dresser.

Prosecutors believe those reasons should keep Russell behind bars while he awaits trial on federal charges. A judge, however, disagreed and decided that Russell can be released on bond.

In a ruling on Friday, US Magistrate Judge Thomas McCoun III of a federal-district court in Tampa said he does not believe there's “clear and convincing evidence” that Russell is a threat to the community. Russell, 21, was charged last month with possession of unregistered destructive devices and unlawful storage of explosive material.

Michael Sandford, who has autism, returns to UK after serving five months of year-long jail sentence imposed for Las Vegas crime

By Kevin Rawlinson - 4 May 2017

Police remove Michael Sandford from the Treasure Island hotel and casino in Las Vegas on 18 June 2016 after he tried to grab an officer's pistol.
A British man jailed in the US for trying to grab a policeman's gun at a Donald Trump rally - in order "to shoot and kill" the then presidential candidate - has returned to the UK.

Michael Sandford landed at Heathrow airport on Thursday, having been released nearly five months into a year-long sentence, his family's lawyer said.

But he then made a grab for an officer's holstered weapon. He later told police he had intended to assassinate Trump.

Sandford, who has autism and suffers from mental health problems, was diagnosed as having had a psychotic episode at the time of the incident.

He was sentenced at a federal court in Las Vegas in December last year to a year in jail after admitting charges of being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and disrupting an official function.
He faced up to 20 years in jail had he been found guilty of the offences at a trial. He had initially denied the charges but pleaded guilty following a plea agreement.

Speaking after the sentencing, Sandford's mother, Lynne, said the family, who are from Dorking in Surrey, were "absolutely delighted" and "over the moon with the sentence".

She told Good Morning Britain: "The judge was a reasonable and compassionate man and he really took into account the full extent of Michael's problems.

"And the fact that Michael was only a danger ever to himself - nobody else. We are thrilled to bits for him."

Asked how her son was feeling following the hearing and about the prospect of being in a US prison, she said: "Obviously it is going to still be a struggle for him each day.

"But just knowing that he has only less than a year to do is going to make a tremendous amount of difference to him. He knows he has got a future ahead of him and it is not too far to go.

"He knows he has got his family to come back to and it just makes all the difference in the world to him."

Sandford was released after serving less than half of the sentence, despite fears Trump might seek to intervene and either keep him in jail for longer or block his return to the UK.

Publicly traded companies don’t typically need to issue statements saying that they do not support terrorism. But Facebook is no ordinary company; its sheer scale means it is credited as a force capable of swaying elections, commerce, and, yes, violent radicalization. In June, the social network published an article outlining its counterterrorism policy, stating unequivocally that “There’s no place on Facebook for terrorism.” Bad news for foreign plotters and jihadis, maybe, but what about Americans who want violence in America?

In its post, Facebook said it will use a combination of artificial intelligence-enabled scanning and “human expertise” to “keep terrorist content off Facebook, something we have not talked about publicly before.” The detailed article takes what seems to be a zero-tolerance stance on terrorism-related content:

We remove terrorists and posts that support terrorism whenever we become aware of them. When we receive reports of potential terrorism posts, we review those reports urgently and with scrutiny. And in the rare cases when we uncover evidence of imminent harm, we promptly inform authorities. Although academic research finds that the radicalization of members of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda primarily occurs offline, we know that the internet does play a role — and we don’t want Facebook to be used for any terrorist activity whatsoever.

Keeping the (to put it mildly) highly motivated membership of ISIS and Al Qaeda off any site is no small feat; replacing a banned account or deleted post with a new one is a cinch. But if Facebook is serious about refusing violent radicals a seat at the table, it’s only doing half its job, as the site remains a cozy home for domestic — let’s be frank: white — extremists in the United States, whose views and hopes are often no less heinous and gory than those of the Islamic State.

In Facebook’s post, ISIS and Al Qaeda are mentioned by name 11 times, while the word “domestic” doesn’t appear once, nor are U.S.-based terror networks referenced in any other way. That gap in the company’s counterextremism policy is curious.

In January 2016, a band of armed militants led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy entered and occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon. Members of the group, with ties to armed, extremist “patriot” groups like the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, said they wanted to shift federal land to local control, and at one point Ryan Bundy told a reporter the group was willing to kill or die if necessary. It would take little work to draw a clear through line from the movement that spawned Timothy McVeigh to the loose confederation around the Bundy family. One of the radicals posted a “goodbye” video to YouTube, taking as a given that he would be slain by the government during the occupation. Between their assault rifles and their implicitly violent rhetoric, opinion pieces at Newsweek, the Washington Post, and CNN all argued that the occupiers were domestic terrorists.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy had earned extremist cachet prior to the Oregon takeover, when, in 2014, they joined with supporters (many of them armed) and their father, Cliven Bundy, to chase off agents of the Bureau of Land Management who were trying to confiscate Cliven Bundy’s cattle in connection with delinquent grazing fees. Sen. Harry Reid at the time denounced the ideologues as “nothing more than domestic terrorists” who do “not recognize the United States.”

And indeed, many in the “Patriot Movement” also consider themselves “sovereign citizens,” a logically bankrupt (and sometimes violent) strain of anti-government anger in which you simply declare yourself exempt from American laws and, in particular, the payment of taxes. At MSNBC, a former ATF agent described his work with homegrown extremists like those at Malheur:

We worked them under the classification of domestic terrorism. There is the umbrella federal crime of terrorism, and domestic terrorism is a classification we used against any homegrown group which intends to coerce or intimidate through threats or acts of violence.

It’s worth noting that Ammon Bundy and five of his followers were, surprisingly, acquitted of federal charges stemming from their occupation of the reserve, while federal charges in connection with the Nevada case remain tied up in court following a mistrial. Still, had the group’s members been born in Pakistan or Syria, Harney County would probably resemble the surface of the moon right now. American radicals like the Bundy clan are cuter about their fantasies of destroying the federal government than, say, ISIS, who of course won’t hesitate to explicitly call for violent attacks using every medium at their disposal. Domestic extremists are sometimes more careful about their words and rely on insinuations and dog whistles rather than overt threats, and American gun culture makes it easy to camouflage violent speech within political speech. But what is an online call for armed reinforcements and a willingness to shed blood (or die) if confronted by police if not a threat?

Asked whether the company is as committed to combating white extremists as jihadists, a Facebook spokersperson reiterated that the company’s policy was to refuse a presence to any person or group who supports a violent agenda. When asked about specific entities like the Bundy family, the spokesperson replied, “I can’t speak to the specific groups you cited, but, again, if a group has engaged in acts of violence, we don’t want to give them a voice on Facebook.” So what’s violence, then? “Does Facebook,” I asked, “consider the armed takeover of a federal building to be an act of violence?” The company’s reply: “I don’t have an answer on that.” Brian Fishman, a co-author of the Facebook company post on terrorism, did not answer a request for comment.

Daryl Johnson is a former Homeland Security analyst who spent years studying domestic threats to the United States. Johnson told The Intercept that although “not all extremists are violent,” treating domestic threats as something distinct from the likes of ISIS for policy purposes “on the surface makes sense, but if you start comparing and contrasting, it doesn’t.” Domestic extremists “are using social media sites as platforms to put forth their extreme ideas and a violent agenda, enabling people to recruit and spread” their ideology — an ideology that Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center said is as dangerous as any threat from the Middle East. “It’s as though terrorism can’t be white,” Beirich told The Intercept after reviewing the Facebook post. “They’re willing to go hardcore against ISIS and Al Qaeda, but where’s the response to white supremacism and its role in domestic terrorism or anti-government crazies?” To Beirich, “What this article is saying is how we counter Islamic terrorism,” not terrorism per se:

My position is this is outrageous. Terrorism from the Dylan Roofs of the world is as much of a problem here in the United States as it is from the Tsarnaev brothers. The bodies stacked on both sides is about the same since 9/11. I don’t understand why they can’t see that. It’s worrying to me because it plays into the narrative as though all terrorism is coming from radical Islam, which is a false narrative. This adds to that, and it takes our eye off the ball in terms of where terrorism comes from … A large chunk of our domestic terrorism is committed by folks with beliefs like those at the Bundy Ranch or Malheur occupation.

Without further comment from Facebook, one can only speculate about why ISIS gets top billing and Bundy supporters do not — but little speculation is needed. A beheading video or pipe bomb instruction image are no-brainers for content moderators, while posts about armed anti-government sedition are perhaps murkier (especially if Facebook is going to let algorithms do the heavy lifting). Labeling right-wing extremism as terrorism would also likely cause a public relations migraine Facebook doesn’t care for, particularly after reports of how it filters out bogus right-wing news sources have already tarnished its image on the right.

All of this is to say that the work ahead of Facebook, if it really does want to be serious about combating terrorism, is extremely difficult, and given the company’s track record, may well be fumbled. Preventing Facebook from being a place where anti-government radicals can comfortably spread an ideology of implicit violence feels reasonable, while blocking discussions about these figures and ideologies — in everything from academic or journalistic contexts to your dad’s News Feed — would not. When does sympathy for an armed radical group become support? When (if ever) does Facebook-cheering a violent group become complicity in the violence? This is deeply complex and horribly fraught, whether you’re looking at Mosul or Montana. Facebook knows this, which is why its article on moderating extremist content is titled “Hard Questions.” Facebook also knows that an overly broad crackdown on foreign terrorism would provoke the tiniest fraction of backlash compared to clamping down on right-wing white America, where love of assault rifle ownership and hatred for government are shared in polite society. But hard questions deserve better than cop outs, which is exactly what ignoring white, domestic terrorism amounts to: a cop out. If the company wants to live up to its commitments here, it will require even harder work, harder thinking, harder scrutiny, and harder debates. Yes, it might require sometimes banning extremists in cowboy hats.